Tinder Social: New app feature helps you and your friends find groups of people to hang out with

New feature matches you and your Facebook friends with other groups with similar interests.

Dating app Tinder has launched a new feature allowing users to plan group events. Tinder Social allows groups of friends to find other groups to hang out with, with the idea being that it will lead to new friendships and offers a more fun way to meet potential love interests.

Tinder Social, which began trials in April 2016, is now being rolled out in full in Australia, the US and the UK. After toggling the feature from the app's setting menu, users can see which of their friends are using the feature and invite them to join a group. Once everyone has joined, you can set the status of the group to whatever shenanigans you plan on getting up to that evening.

You can then swipe through other groups much as you would in the core app. When members from two groups swipe right on each other, the groups are matched and can then arrange to meet up. Groups expire at noon the next day, at which point any matches will disappear.

The fact that you can see which of your friends use Tinder after unlocking the setting seems a bit odd, given that the whole point of Tinder is that it's meant to hide you from people on Facebook. Presumably it's meant to work on a confidential, quid pro quo basis.

The company said in a statement: "Often your best nights are when you're hanging with friends, someone makes an unexpected connection with someone in another crew, and your two crews have an amazing time together. Maybe you spark a romantic connection. Maybe you make new friends. Either way, a good night out with your friends becomes something better."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some people have already questioned whether Tinder Social could be viewed as a way of organising group sex. While we can't say that some users won't use it that way, we expect most people aren't interested in arranging orgies with their Facebook friends. Although that all depends on how liberal you and your friends are.